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Sorry, I am seriously confused. Wasn't Gallium a modern replacement for Mesa? This article seems to be about current Gallium, not current Mesa, right? (I know I may be totally off, I am not a graphics guru though I love to keep track of where things are heading)

In other words, after like 3 years (after ATI started the open-source initiative) neither ATI nor Nouveau (not to mention Intel) have fast and complete open-source OpenGL 2.1 support, not to mention 3.x.

I say it's gonna take another 3 years until we got reliable and fast OpenGL 2.1 support but even today there's many folks already learning the new 3.x so in like 3 years the "fast and reliable" 2.1 version is gonna be too little too late. Not grumpy, it's true.

In other words, after like 3 years (after ATI started the open-source initiative) neither ATI nor Nouveau (not to mention Intel) have fast and complete open-source OpenGL 2.1 support, not to mention 3.x.

I say it's gonna take another 3 years until we got reliable and fast OpenGL 2.1 support but even today there's many folks already learning the new 3.x so in like 3 years the "fast and reliable" 2.1 version is gonna be too little too late. Not grumpy, it's true.

We do have driver that support 2.1 (r600c + r600g, i think r300g does too to some extent). They are not as fast as closed driver but are slowly getting faster. And yes they still have issue with complex shader but it's slowly being fix. The 2.1 -> 3.x transition will be easier than 1.5 -> 2.x as it's mostly about shader and couple of extensions, so it should be faster to get there. Same apply to 3.x -> 4.x it's mostly removing old stuff and adding more shader capabilities. Bottom line right now the key to newer GL is shader support and thanks to work done by Intel folks and others we are slowly getting solid foundation for shader support in open source driver.

When the system hangs, it won't boot properly unless I unplug the power cord and wait for a while - seems vaguely like a thermal problem. I'm running an NV44A fanless card.

Nothing to do with thermal I believe. GPU is put in hung state and GPU doesn't totally reset on reboot! To put GPU in totally "fresh" state, you have to power it down for a moment (as you already discovered). It's known for other devices as well (like WiFi cards).

Same apply to 3.x -> 4.x it's mostly removing old stuff and adding more shader capabilities.

Neither 3.x nor 4.x removes any stuff. The Core profile removes stuff, which hardly anyone uses. The majority of people use the Compatibility profile, which has everything since GL1.0.

Originally Posted by Jecos

OpenGL hah! more like PatentedGL amirite?

Open in OpenGL does not mean open source. It means that anyone can contribute to the specification if he/she pays some money to Khronos, unlike proprietary standards which are controlled by one company. Also you can download the spec for free in PDF, and you don't have to pay royalties for making your own OpenGL implementation (except for some patents).